It Happened One Night

The 1930’s had enough reporter movies to fill this whole list. Every actor capable of spitting out snappy dialogue was given a fedora and a press card to stick in his hatband; nearly every actress played some frail being pursued by a newsman. In this Frank Capra-Robert Riskin romantic comedy, a flighty heiress (Claudette Colbert) runs out on her father to join her fiance in Florida. A wiseguy reporter (Clark Gable) gets wind of her whereabouts, trails her for a scoop and discovers true love. That, and the heiress’s millions, will beat a $5 bonus any week.

A clever romantic comedy with not one, but two mistaken secret identities, It Happened One Night was the only genuine newspaper movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture; it also grabbed Oscars for the director, writer and lead stars. The film was remade as a Hollywood musical in the ’50s and several times — faithfully but without credit — as a Bollywood musical.